The Board of One

Mark Twain is rumored to have said, “In the first place, God made idiots.  This was for practice.  Then he made school boards.”  This was in 1897, when Horace Mann’s idea of “public education” was still in its infancy.  You would think that in the ensuing 126 years we would have evolved.

Schools and school districts have certainly evolved, the jury is still out on school boards, however.  The fact that jellyfish have survived for 650 million years despite not having brains, doesn’t give us much hope.  Watching Hartford’s Board of Education operate, at times, makes us feel hopeless.

• Chairman of the Hartford Board of Education, Phillip Rigueur, has ignored and violated the Bylaws of the Board (“Board Members Keep ‘Public Comment’ Debate Alive”).

• The Board made multiple changes to their Bylaws in 2022.  Bylaws available on the Board’s public web pages haven’t been updated in 13 years.

• Board Member Jim Shmerling attended only 11 of 60 Board meetings held in 2022 (“Chronic Absenteeism on the Hartford Board of Education”).

• Board Member Yahaira Escribano said all signs point to a “Nay” vote on extending the Superintendent’s contract in 2022, but she stated she would take a “leap of faith” and vote “Aye.”

• For 2022, this Board cast only 7 “Nay” votes out of a possible 954 opportunities, and every policy, contract, and appointment which came before them won approval (“The Hartford Board of Education Cannot Say No”).

These are just a few of the “visible” issues currently causing regular visitors at Board meetings to shake their heads and reminisce about Mark Twain.  To some, they may appear trifling, until you follow the indirect linkage to Hartford’s school children.  A much larger issue arose during a Family & Community Engagement Committee meetings this past week.

Bureaucratic problems are not to be ignored in assessing school boards.  Third-party contracts represent a shifting away of school processes and functions to private entities.  Millions of dollars each year are outlayed for services for the school and students. Boards of Education are the trustees of these dollars - the public dollar - also of the schools and the children who attend them.

The functions and purposes of Hartford’s Board meetings are spelled out in the Board’s Bylaws 9321(c) (pay attention, these are important plot points):

• “…consider problems to be solved, weigh evidence related thereto, and make wise decisions…:

• “…receive, consider and take any needed action with respect to reports…”

• “…review and assess indicators…”

• “…review and assess constituent service reports…”

• “…monitor policies and processes…”

And in 9322:

• “…reviewing the integrity and performance of the district’s major management systems will fulfill its duty to assure the public that district resources are being used efficiently and effectively.”

• “…require the Superintendent to provide data and other information necessary to document effective execution and results.”

On February 9th, eleven folks joined the Board’s Family & Community Engagement Committee meeting, unfortunately for the future of Hartford students, only one of those folks belonged to the Board of Education.

Board Member Escribano called up the first agenda item, which was to advance for approval, contracts to HPS partners ConnectiKids and The Village for Children and Families.  These folks run Extended Hours Programs, for “academic enrichment, support, and recreation programs.”  The total contract amount is for $130,000.

The Connecticut law which covers these grants, states that the district will solicit applications from town and non-profit agencies “on a competitive basis,” and the district will, using criteria in the statute, select who gets what and when. 

Did the Board review the applications and criteria scoring reports for the folks who submitted a proposal?  It does not appear as if the Board is involved in the selection process.  And any reports on the selection process are not provided to the public (or Board?) at this meeting.

HPS’ Chief Engagement & Partnership Officer, Nuchette Black-Burke, rather than the Executive Director of ConnectiKids or the Program Manager for The Village, gave the grant presentation to the Board of One, and stated that the awarding of these grant monies is done by RFP through the City of Hartford, and that HPS reviews and scores their proposals and decides on the who and the how much.  This is not the same sense we get from the state statute, but the lack of Board review in the process is still missing.

What sort of data, evidence related to services, reports of performance or effectiveness were presented by ConnectiKids and The Village to the Board today, based on their past work?

Based on information presented at the meeting:

• In 2021-22, ConnectiKids served 277 students “throughout the city of Hartford.”  The Village served 286 students across 3 schools.  However, a search of HPS’ BoardDocs shows no contract ever being approved for either of these groups through the Hartford Board of Education for the Extended School Hours program.  It is possible, I suppose, that their services were provided as subcontractors to another contract awardee.  Which raises accountability questions.

• ConnectiKids states that 88% of students who began the program, completed the program.  55% of students performed at grad level in math and 72% in reading.  They do no not state the schools where these students were from, or breakdown that data in any critical fashion.

• ConnectiKids states that tutoring and mentoring program offers each child 90 minutes of individual or group time.  How often do these 90 blocks occur?  This question is not answered during the presentation or on the included “Scope of Work” document.  This document is at least 9 pages long, but we are only provided with pages 8 and 9.

• ConnectiKids states that the “Book Club” portion of the program assigns students “a” book to read throughout the school year.  One book.

• The Village states that 100% of students attending “programming” were “promoted” to the next grade level.  This may be a terrific claim, but there is no grade or student proficiency data to properly judge the claim and say, “terrific!”

• The Village states that “stipends” are paid to “encourage deeper family engagement.”  The Superintendent ought to pay parents a “stipend” to take her next Culture & Climate survey; perhaps more than 23% would then participate.

• The Village states that they engage the students in the “afterschool” program for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.  This results in a very long day for students in K-8.  Perhaps this is a reason for chronic absenteeism among these students. 

• The contract proposal states that The Village will serve students in Burr Middle, MD Fox, and S.A.N.D. School.  However, in the groups “Scope of Work” document, a 4th school is added, Rawson Elementary.  Is it 4 or 3?  Are we running a special, “4 for the price of 3?”

After this presentation by a member of the Superintendent’s Cabinet, Board Member and Committee Chair Escribano threw up her hands, smiled, and stated, “I have no questions…this is cut and dried…we’ve done this already.”  You don’t?!  It is?!  We have?!

The next item on the committee’s agenda to go through the Board of One’s vetting process, so called, were contract proposals by the Hispanic Health Council and The Village for Families and Children once again.  The two groups are seeking to operate Family Resource Centers in Hartford Schools, a program which provides “comprehensive, integrated, community-based systems of family support and child development.”

The $500,000 available for these grants is transferred from the state to Hartford Public Schools.  After reviewing the submitted applications by outside partners, HPS parses out the award on a per school basis.  Once again, no evidence of the involvement of the Board in choosing which schools will be getting an FRC, could be found.

A study done in 2009 by the Yale Zigler Center at Yale University found that despite being an effective program, researchers suggested FRCs do a better job of collecting data to “demonstrate short and long term outcomes.”  They also suggested that perhaps the state should require each FRC to devote a portion of their grant award for evaluation purposes.

The 2019 application, which potential FRCs must submit to be considered for this grant, states that the FRCs are required to “manage data that track services, activities, and participant information,” including staff and participant surveys.

Again, direct from Central Office, Ms. Black-Burke gave the presentation while representatives of the folks seeking contract approval, sat waiting for any questions the Board of One may have.

The choir was told that for the school year 2021-22, the Hispanic Health Council “assisted” 641 families, while The Village worked their magic on 7,251 families.  This number is nearly half of the Hartford Public Schools’ student body.  However, their proposal for this contract grant, is to assist students and families in 4 schools (Burns, Rawson, SAND, and Wish Elementary).

And this was it.  Paraphrasing what Board Member Shonta Browdy would state at a later meeting, the Board was given lots of “what will dos” but very little “what dids.”   No data representing services, activities, participant information, or surveys from the staff or participants was presented.

The data-lite and legit-lite meeting was quickly and mercifully coming to end.  Without regard or respect for Robert’s Rules of Orders, which the Board adopted as its parliamentary authority in May 2022, and without regard or respect for the whole theory behind the word “quorum,” Chair Escribano unilaterally ordered these contracts to be transferred to the Finance & Audit Committee, and then on to the Regular Meeting for what will be certain approval.

In the article, “Are School Boards Idiots?”, the author states in the context of school boards implementing policies such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core standards,  “…most school boards, like obedient little lap dogs, have done the bidding of the federal government. School boards have bared their teeth only at hapless superintendents and schools that failed to post high test scores.”  However, in Hartford, our dogs don’t fight, or even bark.  Our dogs are like those you see in the SPCA commercial with the Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background.

But the problem is the same.  Their actions serve few, not the local community and certainly not the students.